tops of the windows were so low that it was impossible to see the upper
part of the thing observed (roofs, telegraph-wires, tree-foliage,
hill-summits, sky) without bending the head and cricking the neck. I do
not deny that I was setting a high standard of perfection, but then I
had heard so much all my life about American Limiteds!

The Limited started with exactitude, and from the observation-car I
watched the unrolling of the wondrous Hudson tunnel--one of the major
sights of New York, and a thing of curious beauty.... The journey passed
pleasantly, with no other episode than that of dinner, which cost a
dollar and was worth just about a dollar, despite the mutton. And with
exactitude we arrived at Washington--another splendid station. I
generalized thus: "It is certain that this country understands railroad
stations." I was, however, fresh in the country, and had not then seen
New Haven station, which, as soon as it is quite done with, ought to be
put in a museum.

We returned from Washington by a night train; we might have taken a day
train, but it was pointed out to me that I ought to get into "form" for
certain projected long journeys into the West. At midnight I was
brusquely introduced to the American sleeping-car. I confess that I had
not imagined anything so appalling as the confined, stifling, malodorous
promiscuity of the American sleeping-car, where men and women are herded
together on shelves under the drastic control of an official aided by
negroes. I care not to dwell on the subject.... I have seen European
prisons, but in none that I have seen would such a system be tolerated,
even by hardened warders and governors; and assuredly, if it were,
public opinion would rise in anger and destroy it. I have not been in
Siberian prisons, but I remember reading George Kennan's description of
their mild horrors, and I am surprised that he should have put himself